Whiskey Lullabye
by Bookkbaby
Summary: KagInu, SanMir. Oneshot songfic to Whiskey Lullabye, character death, but bittersweet ending. Kagome left Inuyasha with the Shikon Jewel, but what happens after she's gone for good?


I own nothing- not the song or the anime. No suing. This has been the disclaimer.

She put him out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette

She broke his heart he spent his whole life tryin' to forget

We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time

But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind

Until the night

Inuyasha sat down on the stoop of his hut, the hut he shared with Kikyo. He wasn't happy. He hadn't been happy since the Jewel was completed.

He took a sip of his sake. This was hard sake, not at all watered down. He preferred it that way. If he drank enough, maybe the booze would rot his memory, allowing him to forget her. All he wanted to do was forget. He took a long draught from his bottle.  
'Kagome...' his eyes softened at the mere though of her name.

Flashback  
"I'm leaving." Kagome had said that day. The wind and setting sun made for a romantic setting, but the feeling wasn't at all romantic, but rather tragic.

"When will you be coming back?" he asked.

"I won't be." Kagome said, ducking her head and removing the fully completed and purified Jewel from her neck. She closed his hand around before he had a chance to protest her going.

"You- you can wish for Kikyo and- and you to be happy. Human. Accepted." she whispered, trying not to cry in front of him, the man she had loved since the beginning.

"Bu-but.."

"It can happen. The Jewel's pure." Kagome looked into his shocked face with her tear filled eyes, and somehow she got the strength to smile at him.

"You can be with her. She's always the one you chose." She pulled him gentely, kissing him softly. The kiss lasted an instant, but that instant would be engraved in the minds of two people for eternity. They broke apart, and Kagome shot a shocked look at Inuyasha, surprised by her own daring.

"Go-gomen." she breathed, diving into the well. Inuyasha finally broke from his shock as the familiar blue-purple glow of the well's magic filled the air. He dropped the Jewel and tried to dive in after her, but the well was sealed. He jumped back out, grabbed the Jewel in a fistful of dirt, and jumped back in. No reaction . She was... gone. Completely gone. He hit the ground with his fists, as if that would make it swallow him and deliver him to her.

"Damnit." he said quietly, radiating with anger. He punched the ground again.

"Damnit!" This time, his word was a scream. He dropped the Jewel, shaking with anger as he was. It twinkled in the twilight, mocking him.

End Flashback

That had been barely a month ago, the end to their 5 year long journey. Now she was gone forever, and with her his heart.

'It's not worth it anymore.' he thought, clenching the bottle so hard the porcelin shattered.  
"Damnit." he muttered as the shards cut into his palm. They bled freely, and hurt like hell. As he watched his lifeblood drip onto the ground, an idea came to his mind.

'Life isn't worth it. I can't keep living like everything's alright. Not for Miroku, Sango, Shippo, or Kohaku. Not for Kikyo.' He gathered up a few large but sharp shards and disappeared into the night.

He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger

And finally drank away her memory

Life is short but this time it was bigger

Than the strength he had to get up off his knees

We found him with his face down in the pillow

With a note that said I'll love her till I die

And when we buried him beneath the willow

The angels sang a whiskey lullaby

Next day

"Inuyasha has not come home." Kikyo stonily told his visitors. "He has not been seen since he bought his nightly sake."

"Where could he have gone?" Shippo wondered.

"Miroku, do you think he's-" Sango started, worrying.

"He's perfectly all right. There's a reasonable explanation for this. He's most likely just brooding at the Goshinboku. Again." Miroku said, but his concern ran deeper. Inuyasha would have told someone, or have been seen walking out of the village, but not a single soul had seen him leave. That suggested deliberate stealth.  
"I'll go check. Stay with the children." Sango nodded, minding their son and Shippo while Miroku exited the hut, heading for the forest.

'I hope Inuyasha's all right.'

Forest

Miroku tried to approach silently. He did well, but then he'd had lots of practice.

"Inuyasha?" he called, clearing the last of the bushes to the God Tree. "Are you he-" Miroku stopped, dead in his tracks. Blood was everywhere. Splashing the ground, covering the roots of the tree, everywhere, yet he saw no body. He looked around for a moment, the stench and sight of so much blood almost causing him to be sick.

'He wouldn't...' he thought, following the small trail of blood he had found. It lead to the Bone-Eater's Well, where Miroku did find the body, the body of the person he hoped least to find.

Inuyasha lay face down in the soft moss near the well, near a few kanji marks that were unmistakably Inuyasha's.

They were written in blood, no doubt his own. They were hurried and messy, but the meaning was clear.

'I'll love her until I die.'

Miroku dropped to his knees, eyes getting red, but not from anger.

"Inuyasha... why..." he asked, feeling wetness on his face. He wiped his cheeks, looking at the ground, the sky, the well, anything but the body of his best friend. He eventually stood up.

"I- I must perform the co-correct ceremonies for the... for the dead." he said shakily. He kneeled down next to the body, in a pool of blood, and prayed, but his hands were shaking.

It would be a long time before they stopped.

Sango

"How long has Miroku been gone? You don't think that something's... happened to him?" Sango asked, looking out the door. It was near twilight, and Miroku had been gone all afternoon.

"He's probably fine." Kikyo said coldly. "Don't waste your time going after him. He will return without your assistence." Sango shot a glare at the older woman.

"I'll be going." Sango said rudely, picking her son and Shippo up.

"I won't wait up." Kikyo said, turning back to her medicines. Sango walked quickly to the forest, towards the well. It was easier for her to get to the old God Tree that way. As she neared the clearing, she heard someone praying.

"Miroku?" she called out, pushing some bushes aside. "Is that you? It's Sango."

"Don't come!" he called, but too late. Sango had entered the clearing, with all of it's horrors. She gasped at the sight.

"No..." she whispered, covering the children's eyes. They shouldn't have to see this. Miroku looked down at the ground.

"Apparently, his love for Kagome-sama ran deeper then we knew."

"Wha-what?" Sango croaked, choking back sobs. Miroku pointed, the read the messy kanji that passed for Inuyasha's hand.

"'I'll love her until I die.' I can't imagine he's talking about Kikyo-sama." Sango turned away from the scene.

"I-I'll bring the children back, then I'll come to help." Miroku merely nodded. Sango caught it out of the corner of her eye. Soon, she returned to that bloodstained clearing, silently digging a grave next to the well. This scene would haunt her nightmares for many months to come.

Days after the burial and proper rites, Miroku remembered to look for the Jewel. It was not to be found, but a strange pink glimmer emanated from the bottom of the well. Sango was left with the task of explaining to Shippo and their child why they wouldn't be seeing Inuyasha anymore. Shippo and their son cried. For many nights, mournful sounds could be heard from the huts, ecspecially of Inuyasha's friends. The rest of the villagers mourned as well, mourning the loss of their protector and friend.

The rumors flew but nobody knew

How much she blamed herself

For years and years she tried to hide

The whiskey on her breath

She finally drank her pain away

A little at a time

But she never could get drunk enough

To get him off her mind

Until the night

Kagome

She was twenty one. Old enough to drink. Legally, anyway. She was in college, her major history, the warring-states period. Her professors were super-impressed with her work, but the compliments just seemed to go right through her, without her absorbing any.

"Thank you." she replied woodenly to another excited professor. She gathered her things and left. A few people came up to her to talk about her most recent presentation, on the villages of the sengoku jaidi. She replied just the same to them as her professors. A few guys asked her out. She refused. It had been like that for years. She retired to her dorm room, lying down on the bed and staring at the ceiling.

It had been almost a month, but she couldn't forget. Her tears came freely in her room, with no one to see. Thank God it was almost summer, leaving her vacation almost a day away. She enjoyed helping out at the shrine, one of the few things she did anymore. Everyone was worried about her. She cried herself to sleep, thinking only of him, his golden eyes, and the way his silver hair would whip in the wind.

Across town

"Do you know that Higurashi girl?" a girl asked her friend.

"The one who aces all her history courses and won't take dates from boys or party invitations from girls and always wears red?" her boyfriend shrugged. "Nope, never heard of her." She hit him lightly, playfully.

"Stop that." she said, laughingly but firmly. "She's so odd. She never does anything at all. Anything. I have the dorm next to hers, and she just cries."

"She probably got her heart broken or something." One of the girls friends- Aymi- commented. "She drinks a lot of sake too."

"But she just turned twentyone a little bit ago!"

"She's been drinking for longer then that. She's hurting deep inside. I think she's afflicted with depression." Aymi's boyfriend -Eluki- said. He was studying to be a psychoanalayst, so his opinion mattered.

"Really? She's always been so quiet. Who would've thought?" They turned their minds to other things, less frightening things, but none would forget that conversation.

And everyone in school would know about it.

Next Day

School was over for the year. Kagome packed her bags and left, no end of the year kisses for her, or anyone to get one or give one to. She could feel the whispers following her. Everyone looked at her with pity, until she had at last pulled away and was gone.

Home wasn't much better. They gave her the easy tasks, allowing her to take breaks in the wellhouse. She felt... itchy.

'The well-?' she thought, staring down into it. She felt the light of the Shikon Jewel in the bottom.

"Huh?" She leaned in...

and was falling, down, down down... a familiar light enveloped her, and she was through.  
For the first time, in over a month, Kagome was in the past.

She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger

And finally drank away his memory

Life is short but this time it was bigger

Than the strength she had to get up off her knees

We found her with her face down in the pillow

Clinging to his picture for dear life

We laid her next to him beneath the willow

While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby

Kagome stumbled to the village, missing the new grave. She stumbled into the square, looking for her friends.

"Miroku-sama? Sango-chan? Shippo-chan?" she called, ignoring the stares of the villagers. A door flap moved, and sango's head pepped out.

"Kagome-chan!" She rushed to embrace her friend. Kagome returned the hug willingly. She had few enough friends. Miroku followed Sango out, and he too embraced Kagome. Shippo was next.

"Mama-Kagome!" he cried happily. "I missed you!" Kagome hugged Shippo a little longer then everyone else.

"I missed you too, Shippo-chan." She looked at Miroku and Sango.

"Where's Inuyasha?" Their faces turned cold, full of sorrow.

"You didn't know...?" Sango asked hesitantly.

"No. What happened?" she asked, fearing the worst. She set Shippo down, a look of panic on her face. "He- he's not--?"

"We're sorry." Miroku said, bowing his head. More quietly he added; "We can show you his grave, if you like."

"It-it's not true. Th-this is some sort of a sick joke..." She glanced desperatly around.

"We're sorry Kagome-chan. he's dead." Kagome had tears streaming down her face, falling to the dusty earth below. The earth was dampenening beneath her friends too.

"We... we didn't know..." Sango removed something small from her kimono. "This is a... a 'fo-to' of him that you took before you left." Kagome accepted the small piece of paper. There was Inuyasha, in living color, clear and bright. It was almost like he was alive again, scowling at her or yelling at her to hurry up with his Ramen. Her eyes filled with tears again.

"Please.. please show me his grave." she whispered, memorizing the face in the photograph. Miroku nodded, bowing.

"As you wish." He turned to the forest. "Follow me." Kagome followed, as well as Sango. The soon arrived at his grave.

"'Inuyasha, hero, protector, friend, hanyou.'" Kagome read the kanji on the grave marker. She knelt down on the soil and prayed. Miroku and Sango turned and left. Kagome had to be by herself for a while. She had lost the person she loved the most.

As they retreated, Kagome opened her eyes, knowing that she had to cry again. She shook her head violently, trying to clear her mind of the grief, knowing that it wasn't possible. She did, however, catch sight of something inscribed on the well next to the grave. She wiped her eyes, reading the rough kanji.

'I'll love her until I die.' Kagome's eyes widened. He had had Kikyo... did he mean her? The more she thought, she realized that he did. She collapased from grief, her body wracked with sobs. It wasn't fair. He had died because she had left. As she lay down on the soil, a shard of something pricked her. She sat back up, feeling for the shard. It looked like it was porcelin... and sharp.

'He died for me. I haven't been myself. Perhaps, if we are meant for each other...' she carefully picked up the porcelin shard and drew it along her neck, knowing from her biology classes where the jungular was. Blood sprayed, staining her clothes. She lay back down, a smile on her face again.

She held that look until she died.

It was Shippo who discovered her the next day. He cried for hours at her burial, as well as the entire village, Sango and Miroku ecspecially. they had lost the two people that had been their best friends, but they still at least had each other. That's how things would have to be. After the rites were said for Kagome, and she was buried beside her only love, Miroku wrapped his arms around Sango as they cried together.

"I know that this is cold comfort, but at least those two are now together, as they wouldn't be able to be otherwise. In the next incarnation, they'll meet again. They're soulmates Sango, as you and I are soulmates."

"Perhaps.." Sango said, her nose stuffy and her still weeping. "...they'll have better luck next time." Miroku kissd her forehead gentely.

"They will. Next time, there will be no Kikyo."

One little black-haired girl walked along the road to her house, about 550 years in the future. She was a sweet little girl, barely even 14. Her boyfriend walked beside her, holding her hand. Her boyfriend had black hair just like she did, but whereas her eyes were gray-blue, his were a beautiful purple.

"I'm so glad I transferred to your school." the girl said, smiling up at the boy.

"Keh." he replied in his usual gruff fashion, then he softened. "Me too." They stood at the curb of the street, watching the sun go down just over the hill.

END 


End file.
